Extraordinary
by Miss Pookamonga
Summary: You were never ordinary to me. You were extraordinary because you were my brother. Post-"Sleepers" Tesla ficlet, but no spoilers.


_Dear Readers,_

_In honor of the 67th anniversary of the real Nikola Tesla's death (January 7, 1943), I am posting this little ficlet. It's somewhat based off "Sleepers." I had an idea after watching the episode to write something from the point of view of Niko's older brother, Dane, looking down on him from heaven after all the events of the episode transpired. For those that don't already know, Daniel "Dane" Tesla was the oldest of the Tesla children, seven years older than Nikola, and the favorite of his parents. Dane was apparently extremely intelligent and destined to become an engineer. Unfortunately, when he was about 14 and Nikola 7, he was thrown off his horse while riding and died from his injuries. Young Nikola was permanently traumatized by the event, having nightmares about it for the remainder of his life. He constantly tried to make up for his brother's absence by attempting to impress his parents with his own inventiveness, similar to that of his brother's, but these attempts only brought on more sadness over the loss. Thus, Nikola grew up feeling inadequate, and this probably fed his obsessive-compulsive need to be better, perfect, and extraordinary, because he never truly felt "good enough." This fic is in part a tribute to the underappreciated brilliance of the real man, in part a tribute to Jonathon Young's beautiful portrayal of him, and in part a tribute to all those who feel like he did. Again, it is Dane speaking to his brother after the events in "Sleepers." I hope you appreciate this fic, and don't hesitate to leave a review._

_God Bless Nikola Tesla. May his legacy live forever._

_Best regards from a bookworm (and devoted Tesla fan),_

_Miss Pookamonga ;-P_

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**Extraordinary

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You were never ordinary to me.

From the moment I first saw you, despite how pale and wrinkled your little face was, I knew that you were special. You screamed and cried, kicked and flailed, burped and whined—anything any newborn baby would do—and sometimes I couldn't help but wish that this added annoyance could somehow be subtracted from my life. But even then, I knew in my heart that you were extraordinary.

You were extraordinary because you were my brother.

_Are_ my brother. And always and forever will be.

Before you were even born, I loved you. And after you were, and you grew into that curious little boy who never failed to get himself into some kind of mess, my love grew along with you. And as I look down upon you now, my love for you is yet greater than it ever was during those seven short years I had with you. I have watched you grow from that little boy into a man, a man whose life could not be any more astonishing, and with every struggle, every step you have taken, I have struggled and taken that step with you. I cannot begin to express just how proud I am of every one of your accomplishments—whether it is that frog-catching pole you made as a child or the generator you designed for Niagara Falls, my heart swells with pride for you, my brother. Your life has always been beautiful, your dreams have always been beautiful, and _you_, little Niko, have never been anything less than beautiful and wonderful. I have seen that in the time I spent with you in life, and in the eternity I now spend watching you live.

But why is it that you cannot see any of that beauty yourself?

After I left you, not a day has gone by where you have not thought yourself inadequate, ordinary, and sometimes, even worthless. And it is all because you have never been able to fill the empty space I left behind on earth. You have spent the entirety of your life trying to make up for my absence, trying to prove to everyone else and to yourself that you are someone worth loving. But oh, Niko, if only you could see in yourself what I see in you every day. You see yourself as not "good enough," you see yourself as a failure for being an imperfection, but that is not what I see. Inside that broken man I see the little boy whose spirit was always wider than the sea we spent our summers by, whose imagination stretched far beyond the limits of our little farm, whose dreams soared past the trees and mountains surrounding us and into worlds far away from our own. Inside the nobody you think you are, I see more than just someone.

I see my baby brother.

_You_, Niko. Not a shadow of the boy I was, not a hollow shell emptied by failure, but you, _moj brat_, my brother. You have never needed to be me. You have never needed to be more than perfect. You have never needed to be more than just human. You are already extraordinary on your own, and you always have been. God could not have blessed you with a more extraordinary spirit, with a more extraordinary mind. Every gift you have been given is so full of astonishing beauty that it pains me to see that you are blind to it.

_Mali Niko_, little Niko, I know that now you feel as if you have lost everything. That you are a slave to the ordinary, to the dull, to the mundane. That you are nothing more than a living being left alone to trudge through the rest of your existence without a hope for anything brighter. But that is far from the truth. It matters not what you can and cannot now do. It matters not how long you will live, how strong or weak you are, how much you have yet to do, or how much you may never do. There is a light inside of you, a light so brilliant and so luminous, that no matter what may come your way, it will never be extinguished. It is that light which I see, it is that light that I wish, _dragi Niko_, dear Niko, that you will one day be able to see within the cloud of despair in which you have wrapped yourself. It is because of that light that you live, it is because of that light that there is so much beauty inside you, it is because of that light that you are the magnificent person you are. I hope that someday it will be visible to you, like it is to me and to so many who cared and still care for you. I hope that someday you will understand that who you already are is good enough as he is.

And I pray that you will always remember that _volim te_, I love you, my brother. You will forever be extraordinary in my eyes.

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**FIN**


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